bootmail(8)

📦 version 1.11, in ubuntu jammy

✨ bootmail — like, the reboot emailer ✨

okay bestie, this is the bootmail(8) page and it's genuinely iconic. welcome 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

bootmail — email a list of address a signed message of logs when this system (re)boots

yes the original really says "a list of address", we're keeping it, it's part of the lore now 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically, bootmail is a little program that gets called at reboot by cron(8). it's lowkey the moment for unattended, remote servers — you know, the ones where nobody's physically there to peek at the screen. main character energy for a daemon honestly.

here's the vibe: it reads a list of one or more comma-separated email addresses out of /etc/bootmail/recipients, and then it loops over a list of white-space separated files listed in /etc/bootmail/logs, and it constructs an email out of all of that. obsessed. 🎀

by default, that email will at least consist of:

  • the hostname of the system
  • the time and date of the boot
  • the contents of /var/log/boot.log
  • the contents of /etc/motd

periodt. that's the default package. ✨

bootmail will also cryptographically sign the email message using rootsign(1) and gpg(1). so if you wanna verify that signature, you're gonna need to run gpg --import on the public key stored in /etc/rootsign.pub. no cap, that's the whole thing.

and!! bootmail can optionally encrypt the email messages too — all you gotta do is list a comma-separated list of recipient gpg(1) key id's in the configuration file /etc/bootmail/gpgkeys. slay. 🔐

🎀 FILES 🎀

the cast of characters, the whole squad:

  • /etc/bootmail/gpg.conf
  • /etc/bootmail/logs
  • /etc/bootmail/recipients
  • /etc/bootmail/gpgkeys

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read these next, bestie, they're the supporting actors:

and if you wanna be nosy (affectionate):

👑 AUTHOR 👑

this manpage and the utility were written by Dustin Kirkland <kirkland@ubuntu.com> for Ubuntu systems (but may be used by others — sharing is caring fr fr).

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document and the utility under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 3 published by the Free Software Foundation. 💜

The complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL on Debian/Ubuntu systems, or on the web at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt.

⚠️ real talk though: keep the license info and the author credit exactly as they are, that's not a vibe thing, that's a legal thing. iykyk.

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one's from bootmail, dated 12 July 2011 — yeah she's an elder but she ATE and left no crumbs. go reboot something. 🌸💅🦋

📦 where this page comes from